NFL Power Rankings and Strength of Schedule Analysis for the Week Ending 12/2/19 (Wk 13)

Week 13 Rankings!

You should know the drill by now...

Teams are ranked by losses then Diff, which represents the average weighted net total points per game of their opponents the higher the number the tougher the competition.  The Point Differential or "Diff" table is below this section.

 Diff gives more weight to the most recent results as well as W/L percentage.

Notes:

• BAL remains #1 in my list as well as the Experts Aggregate after a punctuation mark win over SF.  
• CIN at #32 is also something upon which we can agree although a couple of outlets had NYG as the bottom team.  
• Risers 
• DEN jumped 4 spots to #23 after stunning LAC.  The Experts had them at the same landing spot although they had them at #27 last week...weird.
• BUF jumped 3 to #7 overall with a beatdown of DAL  The Experts had them at #9 but only rewarded them 1 spot. 
• MIA rose 3 spaces to #28 after waxing PHI, equal with the Experts who had them at #30 last week. 
• Sinkers
• NYJ showed the world what it's like to be a fan of this team (like me) by pulling out three solid wins only to give a winless team their first notch of the year...for the second time. They dropped 6 places to #27 while the Experts were more lenient on them, dropping them 2 spaces down to 25.
• MIN gave the game to SEA on Monday night and that dropped them 4 places to #10 overall.  The Experts only felt that was worth one getting bucked down one spot to 8 (from #7).  
• NE turned it on in the second half but could not complete the comeback vs. HOU, falling 3 to #5.  The Experts agreed with the same week over week grade as me.

Bullish

• OAK despite losing to #9 KC, the numbers still point to OAK in the top 15 at #14; the Experts are not so rosy with an aggregate average of 18 overall. Their next test is at TEN which has been on fire. 
• ARI at #22 ran into LAR and walked away with a loss.  The Experts have them 4 notches down at 26.  This is going to be a tough go for them in the stretch as they face PIT, CLE at SEA and at LAR to end the season.   
• JAC had an ugly loss vs. TB so I get the Experts having them 4 notches below, but they have  four very winnable games coming up.

Bearish

• LAC is 4 notches higher according to the experts despite the loss to DEN.   With two games against MIN and KC, ending out the season 50/50 would exceed expectations at this point. 
• ATL ran into the NO buzzsaw last Thanksgiving and could not pull off the comeback, but they play a go-for-broke CAR team this week, followed up by SF, JAC and the unpredictable TB.

Strength of Schedule

You know the drill...the table represents the year to date adjusted strength of schedule based on margins of victory and loss with the most recent results prioritized. Those of you familiar with the color code know they change with the standard deviation from the mean.  

Notes:

• CIN took the "top" spot with the most difficult schedule to date, taking over from CLE who dropped to #2 by a couple of hundredths of a point in "Diff" score. 
• BUF remained the Cupcake Kings with Difficulty Rate of 32.1% (compared to 100% for CIN). The span between them and the #31 CHI is as wide a gap as any.  
  
• HOU and BAL both jumped to 10 spots over last week's rankings.  
• NYJ fell the farthest by dropping 9 for a Difficulty Rate of 54.9%
• Of the ten most difficult schedules, SEA, HOU, and PIT had winning records.
• Of the ten easiest schedules only LAC and my NYJ had losing records. 

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Until next time, check out other articles:

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